Defense of Brookside

Game Master caster4life

A pre-arranged signal is safe to assume but not a whole scheduled meeting time/place.

Harcourt manor has a doorman inside who occasionally dozes off on his chair and a night guard who walks around outside. Good stealth rolls could get past them but opening a door right in front of them would obviously be a problem.

Did you need anything else from me? Just checking as it's been quite a while since my gameplay post.

Hmmm. It'd be possible to toss something, or have a bird fly something in - if there was a way to know which window to target. Might make more sense for him to just turn up in the morning? What's useful?

I think I may just go ahead and sneak out, deliver the goods to Hal at the townhome (where he currently is) and then sneak back in. I'm having a hard time squaring a pre-made arrangement in my head when we didn't actually arrange it in advance.

Absolutely!

When we do meet up let's work out some pre-arranged stuff though.
Even something as simple as 'Madame goes outside and feeds the birds during morning tea' can then be used to check if she is being held captive, as well as providng a time to use targetted messaging spells.

Note also: need to know what spells are okay with Mel - is using an Image, or a Hallucination okay? Under what circumstances is it okay? In some ways not liking them is helpful for why Hal should get physically involved.

Failing that I figure Hal will start studying up (Ears if the City) on the Valet, or look for another target. Possession of a household pet is also a possibility I guess, and the cat isn't going to be able to tell someone what happened, even if they remember.

Sure! Although depending on what we learn from the papers Mel has purloined, conditions might change.

I had occasion to stat up a new demon over the weekend for a one-shot happening on Wednesday: Ṣaḫātu demon. Ṣaḫātu means "apathy" in Akkadian. I'd welcome any feedback on it.

My bad. I messed up this time. I'll try and get an update in tomorrow. (and a proper apology).

@Melia: One shortcoming I see is that it is both slow, and needs to maintain aura coverage. So if a party has enough space to spread out, or used ranged weaponry and kite, then there is little it could do.

I know it's in the past by now, but I would probably add:
1.: an extra effect to soothing whispers, where using it against a target already affected by the aura causes the target to fall unconscious for 2d4 rounds, followed by falling asleep - save negates unconsciousness(basically such deep sleep they can't be roused regularily during that time).
=> That would allow it to try and knock a victim out to go after other targets that still fight back, without said victim standing up and getting their bow out the moment it moves towards someone else.
2.: A way to beckon remote targets closer. Swift action, single target, on a failed save, spend one move action to get closer to the demon on their next turn, and can't move away from it during that turn.
=> That way, being slow and/or in open terrain won't be an issue. I know it has Greater Teleport at will, but this way it can stay with other targets and still be a threat to someone that feels safe outside of the aura.

Ah, well, I wanted to add an apology as well.
Let me open with the fact that the last massive online game i played, with clans and all that, was 20 years ago. And I realized, back then, that I do have a mind that can not cope with this kind of entertainment. I love video games, but I need closed segments/sessions, or single-player pacing.
Fast forward to this year, when Lost Ark was released to western audiences. On Steam, on Discord, everywhere I had a friend list basically all the people I was in contact with started playing that. I figured "Oh, that's just the hype. Passing thing, give it 2 weeks and they'll be back to the games we play usually. Only, most of them did not, and I foolishly let myself be suckered into trying it. I believed that I had a job now, kids, that I was at a different point in my life than 20 years ago - but what can I say, player engagement mechanisms also evolved over that time.
Every spare minute(and admittedly several hours parallel to home office) I had was sucked into that game in the past month. I accumulated over 300 hours playtime in 30 days - that's how bad it is. My main - and only char - is now in the endgame-grind. The only stuff really left to do is dailies, and time-gated content. Which is why I managed to pull away, at all.
I know from my university years that I am exceptionally resilient against physical addiction. But mentally? I am very weak at denying myself short-lived dopamine hits, which is basically the whole concept of such a game.
I ended up, after many months, having more spare time starting earlier this year - but that just played into this disaster as I likely would not even have started otherwise. Either way, I SHOULD be able to 'maintain' things with less time-investment now.
It's entirely on me, and I apologize, but I honestly did not expect things to go that bad.

Looks like we were talking about it around nov 29. I couldn't se an agreed upon meeting place, so I would assume it is the one we have been using - Mel's house.
Sounds like the indoor-cloud-wall will still be there?

Sounds reasonable to me. The townhouse has basically been our de facto base of operations.

I assumed that was the implicit plan since there wasn't an explicit one. Bewarned that you might want to set an explicit meet-up plan next time you party split...

I think it might make sense if one of the people other than Mel or Hal posts next. Mel's currently catching some sleep before going to observe the results of her shenanigans, and Hal is ... uh, doing something. Possibly involving this small dragon-baker. So we could do with an interruption in the form of a returning party member or members.

I’ll get a post up, hopefully by tomorrow

PCs should know that Hal is confusing things in his most recent post. For example, Mel took on the tutor persona at Count Harcourt's, not Duke Beaumont's. I think Hal might be rambling due to his IC issues and need some IC help.

Damnit, sorry everyone.

No worries. Hal is an endearing and useful kook.

OK we've stalled. If Turion doesn't get a chance to post in the next 24 hrs, I might just bot him sharing his info. Not very satisfying but it'll do.

OK we've stalled. If Turion doesn't get a chance to post in the next 24 hrs, I might just bot him sharing his info. Not very satisfying but it'll do.

Apologies. I see you already did share the info. New content was released, I was weak :( Send help.

Sorry guys, I've been a bit absent as well. Gonna redouble.my efforts to keep up.

Okay, so I have a temporal question for the GM. The timelines have gotten slightly out-of-whack during this party split.

Day 1

Everyone: met with Turick.

Túrion: forged a letter for Mel and Hal, then started research.

Kazador and Fyrtor: Walked into a bar and proceeded to kick butt and take names. Fight concluded.

Mel and Hal: went shopping. Hal teleported to Helm.

Day 2

Túrion: did research, visited brothel

Kazador and Fyrtor: already done

Mel: adopts Eugenia Crixton persona, gets hired, meets the Harcourt family, scopes out general layout of the place, discovers she forgot to get lockpicks.

Hal: mysterious doings in Helm

Day 3

Túrion: did research, visited brothel, eventually showed up at town home

Kazador and Fyrtor: already done, showed up at town home

Mel: Teaches lesson, buys lockpicks, writes letter to Hal and to Count Aral. Around midnight, breaks into Harcourt's office, steals all his papers and books, and leaves a vague-yet-disturbing message. Retreats the town house.

Hal: Shows up at town house with an inexplicable baker-dragon.

So to sum up, Mel's timeline took three days. Fyrtor and Kazador were done an hour or two into Day 1. Hal's timeline is somewhat vague because he just sort of vanished off to Helm for a while. And Túrion's research/visit to the opera with Isabelle is also on a slightly squishy timeline.

So I guess my questions for the GM are:

What time of night is it now?

Can we plausibly intercept Alabaster at the brothel before going to see Count Turick?

My impression was that it's like 3 AM or somewhere in there right now, which might make an immediate abduction somewhat problematic. Unless Alabaster is staying the night at the brothel? Which is not out of the realm of possibility by any means.

I was going through my posts again before posting.
I ThINK I failed to notice something, but AFAIK Alabaster was not currently in the brothel.
That means your little present will set things into motions and we may have to improvise.

Not sure what options we'd have, as I think we also don't know where exactly he resides(GM wanna correct me on that?). (otherwise jumping him in the night might also be valid.)

Yes the timeliness has had to be coerced for compatibility but Mel's timeliness is accurate. It is the middle of the night now.

There's no reason to think Alabaster is at the brothel right now anymore than any other middle of the night. So about a 5% chance which I'd roll. The madame has agreed to set up an appointment/trap with him.

Regarding fecal material contacting the air circulation device, you might be overestimating how much everything will be overturned come morning. Harcourt doesn't want to tip his hand at the first threat to come his way. It will definitely set multiple events in motion, but it won't change absolutely everything.

Okay then, I propose the following:

We go as a party to Turick, present him with what we've got, and let him know we're planning to capture Alabaster. In fact we would probably be happy to turn Alabaster over to him for interrogation to corroborate what we've pieced together from documents -- both Túrion's research and the papers Mel filched. He has access to, you know, prison cells and such, which we do not.

Once we've heard what he has to say then we go on to the Alabaster Abduction.

Works for me. He does know we work with (if not for) Count Aral, right?

Yes, he is aware of that.

Busy day. Will update this evening.

So, I think the plan is we go abduct Tyron Alabaster while the GM preps for Baron Cust investigations. Does that sound okay to everyone?

For the record, Fennith has a +19 on her disguise (and on her bluff).
Even with the penalty for race and potentially for age(I mean, what age category are Fey anyway...for them it's really just a number :D), that should be decent enough to fool him.
At the least, to get him into the room with her. Also, while Fennith does have issues with bodily autonomy, that's not a "sexual" thing. As many Fey, she'd have no problem with some nudity - as long as people keep their distance. So she may also get him to undress before we make our move.
(Probably not strictly necessary, but I'd like the actual thing to be over as quickly as possible, hopeful before he gets to act - so that nobody in the main room of the brothel notices something is off. Any disadvantage for him helps.)

(And for the record, I did consider simply trying to use Suggestion on him - but he may already be on edge, he may consider certain things 'dangerous' to him, etc... I was not sure if I could maintain control over him, or if I would have backup. That, and we just did that with Rollinsby so I wanted to mix it up a bit :) )

A hero point to Kazador for the funniest line this campaign has seen in a couple years. X'D

Okay, OOC planning time:

It sounds like the plan is:

1) The Madame sends a message to Alabaster, indicating she has an, err, extra fresh new girl and inviting him to come, uh, meet her.

2) We hide ourselves very close to a designated room.

3) When the scumbag shows up, Serena/Fennith takes him up to the room.

4) Hal casts some kind of noise-deadening spell -- not sure what that is, but I'll be interested to see it in action.

5) We run in and bludgeon him unconscious. This probably a Kazador job. Kazador is good at bludgeoning. Especially when Fennith's Cry of Mercy thing is making damage non-lethal.

6) After a delay suitable to the sorts of activities he was planning to engage in, one of us walks out of the place magically disguised as Tyron Alabaster so that he is seen to have left the place.

7) The rest of us transport Tyron Alabaster to Count Turick for interrogation, possibly via a teleport spell which would have the signal advantage of not requiring us to transport a tied-up noble through the streets of Bannerhold.

Right?

The main problem I can see is: what if he's not alone when he shows up? He might bring a servant or two along for security and/or to make himself feel important. Or perhaps he might bring a friend along in order to, er, treat them to a night on the town.

We might potentially be able to fool any companions with a disguise. But for how long? They would know his voice and mannerisms. And they would expect him to, you know, go home after visiting the bordello. Which would be quite a while to sustain the deception.

Sounds good to me. Some parts I'd like to add to:

1.: It seems he's a regular, not sure if she has contact info for him but we may be able to anticipate the next day he will come to the brothel.

2.: If she notifies us of his arrival, we have some time to prep. I would actually hide IN the designated room, not just nearby.

6.: I considered similar, yes - my take on the matter was that if he was here with companions, we(well, the person magically disguised as him) pretend that something came up - some information we learned that means Tyron has to leave right then, and will be heading to the harbor to secure passage, while his companions are to go to his place and retrieve some stuff. (Basically pretend that he learned he is being hunted, and trying to flee the city. That way, if he then vanishes and turns up in custody, it all still makes sense, kind off). Being agitated might also explain some divergence in terms of mannerism or choice of words.

7.: The transport - I can also make him invisible after the deed. So there's no need for a tied-up unconscious noble to be seen. Albeit it might make whoever carries him seem to walk funny. Unless we add e.g. an Ant Haul to Kazador, in which case he can probably casually sling him along like a small keg of beer.

Silence: the plan was Mage's Private Sanctum (5th) but that takes 10 minutes to cast.
though Silence Dust might be better. We can have a bunch of it thanks to Hal's 'Brilliant Plan'.

Disguise: I had been thinking of burning 2 slots to get Claim Identity or Greater Claim Identity. He can then look like a drunk patron. Thinking now maybe an image or a hallucination that covers him getting into a cab to the docks might be better still.
Remember this is about plausible deniability for the people who live at ground zero.

Travel: Teleporting to Turick runs the risk someone might track the lingering magic... but I grant that is pretty unlikely. There are also limits on how much we can carry. Teleporting to a prepared area near our destination seems to be a lot less risky though. Kudos.

I'd really like to have Hal on Dispel overwatch. If Tyron has an escape item, we might be screwed. A simple one-use Dimension Door would be enough to shut us down. Not sure how likely that actually is, but given Hal's anemic combat ability it seems worthwhile.

Brookside GM: How common are one use teleport/DD items? Do they even exist?

They're not common but scrolls, etc, exist. Still not common but if one was sufficiently paranoid, rich, and magically trained (probably 95th percentile or more in all three categories), then one would have such an escape plan.

Sorry, I posted the ooc plan to ic (so we'd actually said it). I added a few things.
I think we need to work out who is hiding in the room, and who is outside.
My vote is Mel and Hal outside dealing with anyone who might be aaccompaanying him (if needed) but in disguise as employees or patrons.
Hal can check his aura as he goes in, to see if he has anything that means we need an abort.
Kaz and Turion (because Fennith) in the room.
Not sure about Fyrtor? Could possibly be in either team.
If needed Hal can DD people into the room. Could also use an illusion to create a wall or something to hide behind in the room, but not sure needed. Could also do invis, but not via Hal. Hal also doesn't like messing with Mirror Transport or equivalent.
Should be possible to rig something to dispense a ton of silence dust easily - we want to douse the room.
Hal still needs to memorise the right spells, and to use brilliant planner. If there's a simple thing someone needs, he could use brilliant planner to pull it out.
We need to decide where we're telporting to, who's going, and ideally give Hal a chance to learn the location well if it is not somewhere he's already been. Hal can teleport 3 additional people easily, and I think 5 if he burns a bunch of stuff.

Memorisation wise looks like he needs
5th: Teleport x2 (in case we need to get back)
4th: Magic Aura (greater) to clean the site if needed
3rd: Major image (if we want to hide extra people in the room - I think Turion might be better at this stuff?)

Hal will precast his combat buffs (mostly Mage Armor) in case the fight goes bad

So Kaz and Turion are crammed into the closet while Fennith plays bait?

I've been super busy, and I apologize here as I have my other games. But yes, Kaz will cram himself into the closet. With poor Turion.

Mel is perfectly fine to run interference with any guards or hangers-on.

Playing the part of an employee at the brothel is outside her comfort zone. But she can probably cope. For a little while.

Could Mel impose on Hal for a Mage Armor, perhaps? She's been relying on her Hat of Disguise to conceal her armor. Which is handy, right up till someone gets handsy. And then they'll wonder why that gown feels an awful lot like chain mail.

She still has Sleeves of Many Garments for suitable attire, and her Hat of Disguise for the rest of her appearance.

Oh, and if she's posing as one of the ladies of the house, she's going to go for something exotic and pretend to only speak Celestial.

Hal can "translate".

Patron probably works as well - and I'm assuming there are employees like bouncers, barstaff, etc?

There isn't a bar but there are some bouncers.

I hope everyone, as a player, is comfortable with what is happening. I am going to keep things PG-13 at the worst. Nothing except a trap attempt is going to be happening in that room. But I know we've touched on some very sensitive topics. Please PM me if there is any issue.

Distributing 1 silence powder to everyone including Fennith.

Hal would like to cast Message on anyone who is okay with it as well. Not sure how that will interact with the silence dust though.

Did Mel want Mage Armour still?

Message says:

You can whisper messages and receive whispered replies. Those nearby can hear these messages with a DC 25 Perception check.

It's not telepathy -- it's actual sound. All the cantrip does is make it possible to whisper to people at greater range and around corners and things. So silence would negate it.

Mel's going to skip the mage armor since she opted for a bouncer persona. Armor would have been highly suspicious on one of the working ladies. On a bouncer, considerably less so. And anyway her Hat of Disguise can make it look like normal clothing, so it's not obvious that she's armored to casual glances.

Sorry Brookside GM.
Intention is to try to get the 'rep' of the bodyguards - a name/alias, and maybe a clue as to how they fight, or personality, if the roll is high enough.

Like: "John. They say she once killed three men in a bar with a pencil. Supposedly retired - maybe he's back?"
Possibly the gather information roll just gives a name, and the rest needs a knowledge roll? I'd be okay with that.

At the risk of being indelicate, could someone please burst out of the closet and kick Tyron Alabaster's pedophile butt into next week?

Also, please note I'm traveling June 23-28 and may not respond quickly.

Yes personally I'd like to be done with this brothel scene, for several reasons.

Battlemap is up. I didn't add a grid because I think it's fairly easy to see roughly where the 5 ft squares fall on this small map? But let me know if this is causing headaches and I'll add a grid.

Turion is currently still hiding in a wardrobe.

Tie Breaker: 1d20 ⇒ 4

Looks like Mel wins. And I thought for sure I'd gotten the jump on everyone lol.

@Brookside GM: Hal missed the init target so cannot act yet, right?

Correct. It's on Kazador and Turion to go. Turion has been very silent lately so I'm not waiting on him but will also bot Kazador soon if Kazador doesn't take his turn.

Umm, Kazador, Alabaster doesn't need to be pinned; he's unconscious. Check the GM's Wednesday post.